Hoi An

Hue to Hoi An was a day bus ride through the country side and along the coast. We went along the Ho Chi Minh highway and the Hai Van pass tunnel It was built 1,172m above sea level and is 12km long. I think one of the longest ?
We passed the city of Danang that is just littered with large hotels and resorts. It's a city with many modern buildings and bridges.



Another half an hour and then we pulled into the bus station at Hoi An. Again it was out of town and the taxi and moto-drivers are keen keen keen to get your dollar! thank goodness for the GPS........we walked the little over a kilometre to our hotel! " No, we don't need a taxi!"

Once a major Southeast Asian trading post in the 16th and 17th centuries, the seaside town Hoi An is basically a living museum. The old buildings still stand but they are full of stuff for the tourists. Everyone is selling, and you don't see many locals In that area. It is rather like a Vietnamese Disneyland.


Among the heritage architecture stand Chinese temples, a Japanese-designed bridge, pagodas, wooden shop-houses, French- colonial houses and old canals.


We enjoyed the riverside. Many great places to eat and lots to wach.The locals loading onto the barges and boats to get home. We saw lots just packed with school kids and bicycles and others full of motor scooters and workers making their way to various wharves on the other side.



Though large-scale trading had long moved elsewhere Hoi An was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in December 1999. You can visit some of the original homes built over a century ago which have a strong Chinese influence.
While we were there we hired a motor scooter and tootled around the area. We followed the road and explored the island.... Great time when you just come across things.



And then to China Beach....The water was so warm, almost too warm, like a bath! The beach was huge and lined with restaurants and beach umbrellas. Having said that we had a very relaxing time drinking beer and snoozing in the sun!



Sorry, we did start with the soft option first! The coconut.... Just make mine two fingers please!


Decision time...... no more sleeper buses! so, we caught a bus to Danang and then a flight the next day to Ho Chi Minh City our last stop in Vietnam before making our way up the Mekong to Cambodia.

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Hue

Overnight sleeper bus from Hanoi to Hue taking about 10 hours arriving at our hotel to be greeted very warmly by the lovely staff at the Hue Niño. mmmmmango!
The hotel was amazing and the owner had a rather wacky sense of humour and there are little "art jokes" everywhere!.......poor Ken!


Hue rose to prominence as the capital of a feudal dynasty which dominated much of southern Vietnam from the 17th to the 19th century
Hue was the national capital until 1945, when Emperor Bao Dai abdicated and a communist government was established in Hanoi.


The Citadel, which occupies a large, walled area on the north side of the Perfume River was where the Nguyen Lords lived. Inside the citadel is a forbidden city where only the emperors, concubines, and those close enough to them were allowed to go, the punishment for trespassing was death.


Today, little of the forbidden city remains, but there is huge reconstruction to maintain it as a historic tourist attraction. Walking around it you do get a feeling of what it would have been like then.






Along with 2 other couples we went up the river in one of the many colourful "dragon boats" to see some of the tombs of the Emperors. A lovely way to see the country.






We stopped along the way to hop on the back of scooters and we were whisked down dirt tracks, through villages to the Tombs.



In the Vietnam War, Huế’s central position placed it very near the border between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. there was much fighting here and a bloody massacre. After the war ended many of the historic features of Huế were neglected because they were seen by the victorious regime and some other Vietnamese as "relics from the feudal regime"; the Vietnamese Communist Party doctrine officially described the Nguyễn Dynasty as "feudal" and "reactionary."


When visiting the tombs you do feel like they had been forgotten, but they are getting on to it now as we saw at the Forbidden City.






Loved Hue, a city that has a very genuine feel and the people are not all after the tourist dollar. A place to put on your list.




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Halong Bay

Halong Bay

First a bus trip all over town for an hour from hotel to hotel followed by a 4 1/4 hours by bus to the port including the mandatory 25min stop at a souvenir emporium. Then onto the boat for lunch and on our way to the islands (11km away)






We motor to shore and go into the Surprise cave, one of Halong Bay's top attractions. The surprise is how many people they can get to arrive simultaneously and fill up an enormous cave, as it turns out, hundreds. There is one cave that opens into an even bigger cave and then an even bigger one! Surprise!


A very quick kayak before heading back to the boat to freshen up for dinner.


Breakfast and then we transferred to a smaller boat for our second day. Nicer boat and off the cattle track so we had a great time.



Kayaking on quiet lagoons through limestone caves into a landlocked lagoon. Monkeys in the trees around...Magic.



Great lunch beautifully presented and swimming in warm water. The day was cloudy with a little rain but no problem.





Back to the big boat via a pearl farm. I didn't know the process but it means cutting up tiny pieces of the oyster lip (so-called mother of pearl tissue) from a sacrificial oyster. A tiny piece of the tissue and a seed pearl about 5mm in diameter are placed within the ovary of a living oyster and left for 18 months. After about 30% mortality and about 30% success in making a perfect pearl, the pearls are harvested, drilled and strung.



After breakfast we climbed to the top of the only inhabited island.then there was as extremely slow trip at about 5km/hr burning up time back to Halong port.


Halong Bay is an amazing spot that is being ruined by over-tourism both in terms of the experience and the associated rubbish.
Advice for those wishing to do see this amazing place, rent a small boat directly and go exploring more bays well away from the madding crowd.
Having said that still a place not to miss.



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